The Cost of Cancer: Part 1- Pre-Mastectomy Care

It looks like all the bills from the period before the surgery are now finalized with our insurer, Connecticare. I should now be able to give a reliable total of the costs of medical are from the time Sandy was diagnosed on July 3, 2008 until the surgery on August 27, 2008.

So far, here's what the billing looks like:

A few notes:

• The physician's billed charges are high because the biopsy was done during an office visit to the surgeon. All of the Doctors' visits are "specialist" visits and subject to a $45 copay with Connecticare.
• Lab costs include blood work and pathology on the biopsy tissue. Connecticare covers them without a copay.
• Radiology and imaging costs included all the scans and imaging, they have a $75 copay.
  Pharmacy costs are mainly the prescriptions we picked up before the surgery. They're high because there's one $315 bill for a chemo-related drug (it's over $100 a pill).

So far we've had absolutely no problems with the processing of our claims by Connecticare and all of the institutional billing has been correct.